


Between Death and Ascension

by Salamander



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Do Not Archive, First Times, Fix-It, M/M, post-season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2018-11-10
Packaged: 2019-08-21 14:03:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16577900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Salamander/pseuds/Salamander
Summary: After stopping the Unknowing, Jon finds himself stuck inside his own mind, but with some unexpected company.





	Between Death and Ascension

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LonelyAche](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LonelyAche/gifts).



> I hope you enjoy this pile of sappy, unrelenting fluff! <3

His dreams are laced with the endless, mechanical sound of hospital machinery, the new music of his heartbeat. It weaves throughout the dreams, neverending in its onslaught. A different kind of binary; Morse he couldn’t translate even with a manual.

They end and begin and repeat on a loop and he cannot escape, he can’t leave there is no way out everywhere he turns there is the Eye the Ceaseless Watcher and it Watches and it is silent in its judgement and nothing halts the onslaught and the pressure of it all and Jon is crumbling-

he falls- ---

And there is someone there to catch him. Jon looks up into amused eyes, and all of a sudden he can  _ breathe  _ again. It’s like a gentle blanket has fallen over him, shielding him from the ever-Watching Eye, and he can find himself again.

And Gerry, apparently. “How?” Jon’s voice is hoarse with disuse. His body has forgotten how to be human - it only remembers how to Watch.

“I’ll be fucked if I know.” Gerry laughs, perhaps a touch bitter. “Gave you my statement, didn’t I? What’s all this?” He waves a hand around at the dreams still roiling outside the pair of them, and Jon shudders.

“Dreams,” he begins, “I dream their statements, I think. They never- they never stop, over and over. I think they’re... trapped here. With me- It. With  _ it _ .”

Gerry taps his chin thoughtfully. “And I’m here too. You took statements from all those people too?”

Jon just nods, weary beyond belief. 

“Okay, that kinda makes sense I guess.” Gerry rolls his shoulders in a shrug, and he’s over it. “You burned my page.” It isn’t a question, and his smile is lopsided; a beautiful thing.

“I did. It was… painful. But I did it.”

Gerry places a hand over Jon’s, ever so gentle. “Thank you.”

Jon goes red, opens and closes his mouth. It’s all he can do to stammer, “you’re welcome. I mean, you’d do it for me, right?”

“Yeah, I would. That’s no life.”

“Hah. Neither is this.” Jon looks past Gerry’s shoulder at the trapped, and shudders once more. “And now you’re trapped here too. With me.” He looks at Gerry, sharply. “Wait a minute. How come you’re not reliving your statement? Your- uh. Your first death?”

“God knows. Don’t feel like questioning it too hard, either. I’m more interested in why  _ you’re _ trapped here. You stopped it, didn’t you? The Unknowing?”

“Yes, I- I believe so. It was… very confusing.”

Gerry laughs. “Yeah, the Stranger has a habit of being like that. So you should be out there, celebrating with your guys, right? So how come you’re in here.”

“I don’t know!”

“Just thinking out loud, don’t snap.”

Jon’s mouth closes abruptly, but he cools the glare that comes without thinking. “Fine!  _ Fine _ . Okay. Let’s uh, troubleshoot?”

“Have you tried, you know. Waking up?”

Jon shoots Gerry a glare that says it all. “What do you think? Of course I’ve tried that. I  _ can’t _ .”

“I wonder what’s stopping you. Obviously these dreams are important, otherwise they wouldn’t be on the endless Generation Game of Doom.”

“The wha- oh, I see. I wonder if  _ they’re _ still experiencing them too, out there somewhere. Ugh.”

“I guess that’s what the Beholding does, isn’t it. Literally watches you forever.” Gerry grimaces at the thought.

“Mm, so it would seem. But how do we get them out?”

“Well, more importantly, how do we get  _ you _ out? What if it’s like a power up or something. You gotta  _ level  _ up before you can wake up.”

“That… actually makes a lot of sense. Elias always talked about how he needed me to be ‘ready’. Maybe this is how he prepares me for… whatever the hell it is he has in store for me.”

“For the Watcher’s Crown, more like.”

“Mm, quite.”

Gerry looks around at all the dreams, flashing past them like slow-mo cinema now that Jon isn’t outright experiencing them as he normally would be. It’s like being inside a glass cage, watching the world go by but unable to influence it. “Is this what it’s like for you?” he wonders out loud, focusing on one image and then the next. “Constantly seeing them in your dreams?”

“Yeah, it- it’s not much fun. Ever since I took my first statement from an actual person, not just from a dusty old file.” Jon shudders, placing a hand on Gerry’s shoulder for reassurance. “But in here? It’s so much worse. 

Gerry’s hand rests on top of Jon’s, and he looks at him, a softness in his eyes that Jon hadn’t noticed during their only real meeting, if it could even be called that.

“So what have you tried to wake up? So far, I mean?”

“Tried? Well, I mean. Nothing, really. It’s all I can do to avoid  _ that _ ,” Jon gestures above them with a sharp head movement and a raised eyebrow, “let alone try anything out. It’s strange. Once I’m in the dreams, it’s like I can’t do anything at all. I’m just an observer, stuck there just as much as they are.”

“Like you’re stuck in a record groove. Well that sucks.”

“It… does, yeah. It really sucks.” Jon’s shoulders slump, and in that moment, Gerry’s heart breaks for him.

They’re sitting down, legs crossed, and it takes but a moment for Gerry to lean in close, to cup Jon’s face and press the most gentle of kisses against his lips.

Jon freezes, almost seems to stop breathing, and then he relaxes and kisses Gerry back, though no less chaste. They break apart, Jon’s eyes flitting across Gerry’s face, searching. “So was that a plan or just something you felt like doing?”

Gerry grins at him, something dancing in his stomach that he’s never felt before. “You’re like Sleeping Beauty,” he says, simply. “Kiss by your Prince should work, right?”

“And you’re my Prince, I suppose,” Jon grouses, but his heart isn’t in it. He glances down at Gerry’s lips, then back up again, looking into his eyes like he’s searching for something. “Well, better do it properly, then. No use half-arsing it.” 

He leans in, eyes closing, and Gerry kisses him again: like he means it, this time. Jon sighs into the kiss, lips parting ever so slightly as he lets Gerry in. One of Gerry’s hands slides down to his waist while the other is still cupping his face, and Jon feels like he’s the safest he’s ever been in his life; even here, even now in this nightmare hellscape of dreams and watching. 

Jon breathes out, opens his eyes, and the light almost blinds him-

the light- ---

Different, no longer coated in that drip of  _ Watching _ . Clinical and cold, and Jon blinked away the grit from his eyes as he looked around the room.

Hospital room, he noticed immediately. The sound of monitors filled his ears, and he laughed in disbelief. There it was - the sound that’d permeated his dreams so thoroughly. Woven its way through his mind, threading into him like a second heartbeat.

Jon realised, somewhat belatedly, that he wasn’t the only person in the hospital room, or even in his bed. He looked down at the black haired body that was sprawled against him, stunned into silence for a moment before surprise took over. 

“Gerry? How the  _ hell _ ?”

Gerry groaned and looked up at Jon, hair an absolute mess all over his face. He blew upwards and some of it flopped to the side. “What do you know, it worked.” He grinned up at Jon, although the effect was somewhat diminished considering the hair in his face.

“God, that really does make you my Prince then, doesn’t it. You’re going to be insufferable.”

“How do you know? Maybe I’ll be graceful and chivalrous, like a proper Prince.” Gerry sat up and stretched both his arms with a frankly filthy noise. “Oh my fucking god, that feels amazing. I can’t believe that actually worked.”

“You’re- you’re actually real, aren’t you. There’s no more of that weird static when you talk.” Jon reached out and traced the line of Gerry’s face with wonder. “I’m not even going to question it. You’re real and alive and that’s all that matters, isn’t it.”

“I’m not a book any more!” Gerry’s smile was infectious, and Jon found himself smiling along too. And then the reality of his situation hit him like a blow to the head.

“I stopped the Unknowing,” he murmured, hand dropping back to the covers to twist them around again and again. “But we lost so much... “ Jon stared at the covers, blank and white and as sterile as could be considering he’d been there for God knew how many days already.

“You did,” Gerry agreed. He moved, finally; wriggling until he was laid at the side of Jon - the side without all the tubing, at least - and he nuzzled his nose against the line of Jon’s jaw. “You did your very best against all the fucking odds, Jon. You’re not at full strength yet, Elias has been keeping shit from you left right and centre, and you still beat that wanker. I don’t know what happened in there, but I feel like I  _ know  _ you, and I know that you did so damn well.”

Jon’s breath hitched and he choked back a sob that threatened to overwhelm him. He closed his eyes and buried his nose in Gerry’s hair, not stopping to think that it might be a little bit weird, that they barely even knew each other; that Jon hadn’t been intimately physical with anyone since Georgie, and hadn’t  _ that  _ gone oh-so-well. Gerry smelled good, leather and paper and ink and wine, heady and  _ safe _ , and oh-

“You really need a bath,” Gerry murmured against Jon’s neck. 

“I need to bloody well get out of here,” Jon shot back, “and you just did an amazing job of ruining the mood.”

“Always happy to help.” Gerry smirked up at Jon. “But how are you feeling? Apart from the obvious hospital stench, I mean.”

Jon paused for a second, tilting his head as he thought. “I… actually feel quite alright. Do you know what happened to me? All I know is that I couldn’t wake up.” He looked around the room and blanched at the sight of all the flowers and ‘get well soon’ cards. Well, all three of them, anyway. So that would be, what? Martin, Georgie and possibly Basira? Hm.

Gerry rolled off the side of the bed and onto his feet, stretching again with another of those ridiculous and oddly endearing noises. 

“You sound like a bear,” Jon remarked as Gerry reached down to the bottom of his bed. “A really grumpy goth bear.”

Brandishing the chart at Jon, Gerry made the noise again and then dissolved into laughter. “A fucking bear,” he repeated, wiping his eyes. “I have no idea why that made me laugh so hard, holy shit.”

“Not much laughter between pages of skin, I suppose,” Jon replied with a pensive smile. “Go on then, what was the verdict?”

Gerry’s eyes widened as he flipped the pages over. “You were  _ dead _ ,” he breathed. “Well, pretty much, anyway. Vegetable Archivist?”

“Give me that!” Jon snapped, reaching out for the chart. He flipped through, possibly faster than he normally would have been able to - not that he noticed at that moment in time - and digested the information laid bare before him. “No heartbeat,” he whispered, all the wind taken from his sails. “No anything…”

“Just brain signals,” Gerry said quietly. He walked over to Jon and sat back down on the bed next to him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. “I don’t know how, but I guess it’s something to do with that big eye in the sky.”

Jon choked out a bitter laugh. “Yes, I suppose you’re right.” He pressed a hand to his neck and fell silent, feeling for his pulse. It was there, and felt perfectly normal - something which shouldn’t be a surprise, but after reading that chart... Well. Anything was a surprise now, wasn’t it? “I wonder what other  _ benefits _ I’ve gained from this,” Jon said, pensive. 

“You gonna do some testing? I mean, you could already do quite a lot, right? The whole making people talk thing, for one.”

A frown. “Maybe I’ll wait to find that out, actually.” Jon sighed and slumped back against the bed, leaning more heavily against Gerard. “I’m really very tired, but I feel like I’ve slept for a year already. It’s a strange quandary.” He looked around at the empty hospital room, pondering for a second. “Do you think they’d discharge me, if I asked nicely? I could really do with a night in my own bed…”

Gerry chuckled. “After being almost legally dead, I can’t say I’m sure on that one.” He followed Jon’s line of sight, noticing just how late it was from the window outside, and how quiet the corridors seemed to be beyond the room. “Maybe we should sneak you out instead.”

“Wow, really? I’m not sure that’s a good idea. And besides, it’d only worry everyone else. Wouldn’t it?”

“Maybe we could leave them a note on your pillow. You know, like The Godfather, but without the gross horse head.”

“Hm. A grossly unhelpful note, instead.” Jon patted Gerry’s thigh. “You certainly have a way of working, don’t you.” He heaved a sigh, but in all honesty, the idea of going home to his quiet, dim flat was too appealing for him to really object much to Gerry’s plan. Sleeping without that monotone sound of hospital machinery sounded even better, especially since it had wound its way into his nightmare-scape so insidiously. “Do you think you could get a self-discharge form from somewhere quietly?”

Gerry gestured at himself. “I’m not exactly the most forgettable of faces, you know. All the goth hair, tattoos and scars kinda give me away.” He saw Jon’s face fall, and quickly followed up with, “But since it’s for you, and since you know, you did bring me back to life and all that shit? Yeah, I can try.” 

He stood up, almost unwilling to let go of Jon, but he managed it in the end, fingers trailing off his shoulder like a lover leaving the bed.

Jon watched him leave, settled back against the pillows wearily, and then Gerry was back as if by lightning. Jon blinked up at him, confused.

“I managed,” Gerry said breathlessly, hurrying to the bedside with a sheaf of papers and a biro. “Nearly got caught for a hot second, but I got them.”

Jon blinked again. “But you’ve hardl- oh never mind. I suppose I fell asleep…” He wasn’t even sure, and that was possibly the most unnerving part of this. And if he slept for real, how was he to know that he’d wake up again, in the morning? That he wouldn’t slumber again, trapped in that spiel of nightmares, endlessly watching and-

Gerry touched him gently on the hand. “Jon? Jon, take a deep breath, you’re panicking.”

He snapped out of it, taking deep breaths along with Gerry, who counted to five on each exhale and inhale. “I was just-” he began, then took another two breaths and started again, “what if I go home and sleep and then don’t wake up again. What if I get stuck there all over again, but this time you can’t help me get out?”

Gerry rubbed soothing circles into Jon’s hand. “Whatever happens, I’ll be there with you, okay? I won’t leave you, Jon, I promise.”

“Why?” It came out ragged, despairing. “Why would you do that for me? You barely know me.”

“Because you helped me,” Gerry said, simply. “You burned my page like I asked you to, and then when I was stuck in your dreams, you helped me get out.”

“More like you helped  _ me _ get out,” Jon murmured, but he couldn’t argue with that sentiment really. “It hurt,” he said, after a pause. “Burning the page. It was… painful. I nearly couldn’t do it.”

“But you did,” Gerry replied, smiling down at Jon. “Come on, let’s fill this form in and leave it here, then I can try sneak you out. Somehow. We’d better start with turning off these machines, so no-one gets suspicious!”

\- - -

Jon’s flat was much the same as he’d left it, all that time ago - not that it had actually been that long ago. It just felt like a year after… after everything that’d happened. 

The curtains pulled on gave a dark cast to the place, and it smelled as musty as if he’d been growing mushrooms for five years. He wrinkled his nose, and Gerry, arm around Jon’s waist, let out a deep huff of air.

“This is gonna take some time to air out,” he said, looking around at the flat; a bowl still on the worktop waiting to be washed up, spoon poking out of the top; coffee cup next to it, probably with a good centimetre of dregs left in the bottom. “Smells like a real bachelor pad.”

Jon elbowed him in the ribs, but there was no heat in it. “Hey, I do not have a  _ bachelor pad _ ,” he said, the words dripping with disgust. “I haven’t been home since- since the Unknowing.” He fell silent, memories threatening to take him over.

Gerry squeezed him tight. “Well now you’re back, and I’m here too. I’ll help out with this place, we’ll get it clean and smelling nice again soon enough I bet.”

“I’m not sure I have the energy to clean things right now.” The admission came hard, but Jon couldn’t hide from it. He may be miraculously awoken from the nightmares and the near-death coma, but the burden it’d put on his body wouldn’t be so easy to come back from. “It’s a miracle I’m managing to stand up as it is.”

“With help from yours truly, of course.” Gerry chuckled, but his grip around Jon’s waist didn’t loosen. In truth, the journey from the hospital had been every bit as hard as he’d anticipated, and he fully expected Jon to need plenty of time to rest and recover his strength, both physically and also probably mentally too. There was no telling what kind of effect those nightmares and the Beholding were beginning to have on him; no way of telling how he’d adapt to the changes in his body. Gerry knew from experience that changes like that? Well, they could be a lot more gruelling than you anticipated. Even though his own tattoos and brushes with the powers weren’t on the same level as Jon’s, the very acts of them left their own literal and figurative scars. And it was usually the ones that you couldn’t see that took the longest to heal. Sod’s law and all that.

Jon sighed, but he leaned into Gerry’s shoulder, happy enough to let himself be propped up without complaint. “Alright, we can deal with that later. I just want my bed.” And if Jon’s voice held a little tremor of need, then he wasn’t going to bring attention to it, and nor was Gerry.

“Okay, the bedroom is…?”

“Down the corridor, on the left hand side.”

They made their halting way there and Gerry wrinkled his nose at the stale smell in the room. “Okay, I know you need your bed, but let me open the curtains and window first, yeah?” He walked them to the double bed in the corner of the room and deposited Jon there, before darting around the room with an unexpected burst of energy. 

The bedroom looked immediately better with the curtains drawn and opening the window let in a little fresh air which brightened the whole place up. “Where do you keep your sheets?”

“Sheets? Oh.” Jon blinked at Gerry, disorientated for a second, “they’re in the cupboard between the bathroom and here. Um, on the right.” He gestured, and Gerry went and found it. There were neat piles of sheets and quilt covers and pillowcases, and for some reason that just spoke  _ Jon _ to him. 

Gerry picked out a blue sheet and a near-matching set of quilt cover and pillowcases, and headed back to the bedroom. He managed to get Jon off the bed and into a chair, the bedding changed, and Jon back onto the bed in almost record time, and then, finally, allowed himself time to breathe.

Jon laid back on the bed, head cushioned, and smiled down at Gerry as he laid next to him. “So how does it feel to be alive again?” 

“A hell of a lot better than the last time I was awake, let me tell you.” Gerry shuffled up the bed until he was on his side, facing Jon. Without thinking about it, he gently brought his hand to Jon’s face, caressing the scars he found there with infinite tenderness. “These from the Filth?”

“Yes,” Jon replied with a wry twist of his lips. “What gave it away?”

“Round,” Gerry said, and then stifled a laugh. “Sorry, I shouldn’t laugh, should I.”

“You’ve got twice as many as me, I suspect.” Jon turned to Gerry, weariness forgotten, and took hold of his free hand. He brought it up to his face, turning it this way and that, examining the scars he found there, and the tattoos at each knuckle. “Did these hurt?”

“Which, the scars or the tattoos?”

“Well, both I think? Burns, yes? From the hospital?”

“Yup.” Gerry crinkled his face in disgust. “Not something you forget the smell of, you know. Your own flesh burning.”

Jon shuddered, but didn’t stop his examination. Tentatively, he brought Gerry’s fingers to his lips, pressing a kiss to their tips ever-so-gently. 

“Handy, though. Now I don’t have any fingerprints. Really helpful for doing a crime.”

Jon spluttered. “Doing a crime? What kind of crime?”

“Oh, like kidnapping important Avatars from their hospital beds in the middle of the night, stuff like that.” Gerry leaned closer, pressing his forehead against Jon’s. “It was a crime of passion, they say. Unexpected from Mr Keay, considering what a hooligan he was. They said he could never love another, you know. They said that he was mad.”

“Well I’ve personally seen him getting very passionate,” Jon murmured, playing along. “Did you know that he managed to  _ rescue  _ that Archivist? With the power of stupid metaphors, that’s what they say.”

“Hey, those metaphors were really fucking funny, I’ll have you know.” Gerry smirked. “And they helped get us out, so shut it, you.” 

“Hm, very well. But I do believe you’ll have to find a way to make me.” Jon directed all his intensity into staring right into Gerry’s eyes, and then before he knew it, they were kissing. It was sloppy and messy, their teeth clacked together on multiple occasions, and quite frankly it was the nicest thing that’d happened to Jon in what felt like forever.

Hell, the last person he’d even  _ kissed  _ was Georgie, and that hadn’t felt like… well, like  _ this _ . Gerry pressed his body against Jon, and Jon realised with a barely-suppressed start that Gerry was hard against his thigh, moving against him almost imperceptibly as they kissed.

And wasn’t it just like Jon to detach from the moment; to analyse it instead of giving himself over to the sensations. 

He sighed into Gerry’s mouth, pulling away gently. “I-”

Gerry made a shushing sound, and pressed his fingers against Jon’s lips. “It’s alright,” he murmured, moving away a little to give Jon some space. “I’m sorry, I probably shouldn’t have done that.”

“No, it’s not that. It’s just… well, I’m very inexperienced, and…” Jon made an exasperated sound. “God, why is this so hard to even put into words?” He rolled his eyes, and then pressed forward and kissed Gerry again as though he was drowning, pushing up against his chest with an urgency that almost frightened him. Jon didn’t know where this urge had come from, but the sudden need to  _ Know _ Gerry in every way was overwhelming, and the only thing he could do was channel that into kissing him, pressing against him, the hard solidity of him - not something he’d ever felt before.

He tugged at Gerry’s clothes with another frustrated noise, and Gerry took hold of both of Jon’s hands, pulling them together and up to his lips. He kissed his fingertips, watching Jon the whole time. “Woah,” he murmured, “let’s slow down a bit, yeah? You’ve just got out of the hospital and that, I don’t want to overwhelm you.”

“You’re not overwhelming me,” Jon bit out, but he took a deep breath and settled himself with some effort. “I need this, Gerry. I need- I  _ need  _ you. Will you let me?”

“Of course,” Gerry said, exhaling gently. “Come here, let me-” He let go of Jon’s hands and, together, they declothed, removing every layer like it was something sacred, dropping them off the side of the bed into an untidy heap until they both lay there in nothing but their underwear and breathing as heavily as though they’d been like this for over an hour already.

Jon couldn’t take his eyes off Gerry’s body. He was long and lean, but there was some muscle there, under the surface, and the gentle curves of it were delicious to look at. And then there were the scars. Jon brought his hand up and caressed a particularly bad burn across Gerry’s ribs, his touch as light as gossamer. “So many,” he breathed, “you must have been in so much pain.”

Gerry shrugged lopsidedly, a shy smile on his face. “Yeah, a bit. You know how it is.” And he took hold of Jon’s free hand, the one which Agnes had shook, and kissed it across the whole length and breadth of the scars, paying careful attention to every tiny detail of it until Jon was overcome with pleased shivers; the thought of Gerry being the one to  _ know  _ him like this turned into a sort of feedback loop.

Jon turned his attentions to Gerry’s ribs once more, and this time he moved and bent in the bed until he could brush his lips against them in place of his fingers. He breathed against Gerry’s skin, kissing it slow and sensual until it prickled beneath his touch. He brought his tongue to bear, tasting the differences in texture as scar tissue met clean skin. The border between the two wasn’t stark - more like a gentle gradient that would have been the opposite of gentle in that moment of burning and white-hot pain.

He noticed that the tattoos from Gerry’s knuckles and hand joints followed the same trend across the whole length of his body, and Jon kissed those too, suddenly needing to Know if he could taste the ink and the shape of it. It felt like a benediction, kissing those eyes; like a prayer to the Beholding, and Jon wasn’t sure how he felt about that, but what he did know was that in this moment, he Knew Gerry, and the depth of feeling swelling inside of him for this man was enough to eclipse that ever-watching patron of his.

And then it was Gerry’s turn to lave attention onto Jon; caressing his pot-holed skin with his own marred fingertips. “I don’t have that much fine feeling any more,” he said with a wry grin, “but I can still feel how fucking gorgeous you are.”

Jon blushed and squirmed beneath Gerry’s touch, but he didn’t relent. He pressed Jon down onto the bed and moved so he was kneeling above him, bending to kiss him everywhere. He watched as Jon’s fine, downy hair raised to his breath, skin prickling in reaction until he was nearly shaking with need.

Gerry smiled and looked up at Jon, watching him intently as he mouthed kisses against his crotch, feeling for the hardness beneath, pressing against his briefs with a little more insistence. He watched him under his eyelashes as he pulled down the waistband of those briefs, kept watching as he bent to nuzzle Jon’s dick, pressing kisses and breaths against it until Jon was a mess of squirming and tiny little noises.

“G-Gerry,” he moaned, one hand falling to tangle in Gerry’s long hair. It felt surprisingly soft, considering he’d been dead less than a day ago. “I- You don’t have to do that, it’s- ah!”

“But what if I want to?” Gerry grinned evilly, then wrapped his lips around the head of Jon’s dick, still watching him all the while, and took it all the way inside until Jon nearly hit the back of his throat. 

Jon made a strangled sound and tightened his fingers into Gerry’s hair until he was sure he was hurting him, but Gerry didn’t let up even one inch, holding Jon firm by his hips until he was so overcome he could do nothing but buck and shake and then he was coming down Gerry’s throat, mortified. 

He relaxed all of a sudden, the tension from the hospital and the nightmares and everything else dissipating with the sudden flush of dopamine and oxytocin. He loosened his grip and caressed Gerry’s scalp, feeling the way his long, straight hair felt through his fingers like silk as though he could see it through his very touch.

Gerry pulled off Jon’s dick gently, nuzzled it again, kissed and licked and until it was clean and Jon was shivering with near-overstimulation. He crawled up Jon’s body with breathy kisses; the soft down of his belly, the dip between it and his hip; taking a pause to pay particular attention to his nipples, sucking them into his mouth one at a time, eyes closing with bliss like he was worshipping Jon. In a way, maybe that’s what he was doing. Maybe that’s what they were both doing; what they both needed after everything that’d happened,  between death and ascension: a scrap of humanity to hold onto.

Jon reached blindly for Gerry, tugging him up and away from his ministrations to lay half on top of him, half flopped on the bed. “That was-” he began, then trailed off. “I don’t even know how to  _ describe  _ what that was.”

“Well, I really hope you’d use words like ‘awesome’ or ‘fucking amazing’ or shit, I’d even settle for ‘really nice’.” Gerry smiled broadly, softening his words by kissing a line across Jon’s jaw, an extra few saved for the scars that scattered there, constellations across his skin. 

“Hmm, I suppose I can give you that.” Jon smiled down at Gerry, lopsided. “It was just a little bit fucking awesome.”

Gerry snorted. “Okay, that sounded weird from you. Maybe you should stick with ‘ _ good Lord _ !’ I think it suits you a bit better.”

“You make me sound like such an old person. I’m not sure how to feel about that.”

“Well, I may not know you quite as well as I’d like to yet, but even I can tell that you’re basically a fifty year old crammed into that gorgeous youthful body of yours.”

Jon swatted him gently on the shoulder, but couldn’t suppress a huff of laughter. “Well I’ll admit, it has been said.” He paused, though, pensive. “Do you- do you really think I’m gorgeous? And yes, I realise what a pathetic question that is, don’t you dare say anyth-”

Gerry shut him up with a kiss. “Yeah, I do,” he said as he pulled away. “So you enjoyed yourself? I’m glad.”

“What about you, though? I mean… you’re still…” Jon flushed slightly, but he could still feel Gerry’s erection pressing against his hip. 

“Don’t worry about that,” Gerry murmured, “I wanted to make you happy.”

Jon frowned. “And I want to make  _ you _ happy. I may not be experienced, but I’d like to try. Would that be okay?”

Gerry moaned, and he rutted against Jon without even thinking about it. “God fucking damn, yes please. God-” He was startled into silence as Jon reached down and took hold of his dick, gripping it with determination. “Ah, God Jon, that’s- ah fuck.”

“You really are quite filthy-mouthed, aren’t you?” Jon bent his head to take Gerry’s mouth in a kiss as he experimented, loosely running his palm over the thick length of Gerry’s dick. He was shorter than Jon himself, but quite a lot thicker, and in that moment Jon couldn’t help but See what it might be like to take that thickness inside himself; to give himself over body and soul to Gerry; to-

“Holy  _ fuck  _ Jon, what are you doing?” Gerry’s eyes were wide and he thrust up into Jon’s hand with a new intensity. “I can- fuck, I can  _ see  _ that. What are you-”

Jon’s brow furrowed as he realised what he was doing, and a wicked little smile crossed his lips as he intensified the image in his own mind: just what it would feel like to be breached for the first time ever by the blunt head of Gerry’s dick; how stretched and full he’d feel; how his thighs would tense as he sunk all the way down, balls deep; how he’d press down on Gerry’s hip, holding him there as he took all of him and then more.

Gerry came with a strangled shout, and as Jon came to from his work, he realised that his belly was hot and wet and sticky, and that whatever he’d been doing must have worked in perfect tandem with his hand, but that after the fact… he hadn’t exactly learned what the best way of touching Gerry was after all.

The comedown from the Seeing and projecting hit Jon like a ton of bricks, and he sagged back down into the bed, weary beyond description. 

Gerry himself, still breathing like he’d run a marathon, just lay, shivering against Jon’s chest, every so often his entire body twitching with the aftershocks. “That was…” he began, speaking into the salt of Jon’s skin, “that was fucking… I don’t even know. What the fuck, Jon.”

“Was it… was it bad?” A cold wash of fear hit Jon as he realised the extent of what he’d done. Using his powers again on innocent people without even  _ asking _ , how could he be so callous? And for something so intimate, too. Oh Lord…

“I can almost hear what you’re thinking,” Gerry murmured lazily, rubbing circles in his own come smeared across Jon’s belly. “You’re terrified that you’ve violated me or something, aren’t you.” It wasn’t a question, and before Jon could answer, he continued: “I fucking  _ loved  _ it, Jon. It was… god, I can’t even. I literally don’t know where to start. It was like guitar feedback into an amp, right into my brain. You just lit me up, it was like you knew exactly what I wanted to see…”

“More like what  _ I _ wanted to see,” Jon replied, “when I said I was inexperienced, I really meant it. This is the first time I’ve ever done… well, anything, really, with another man. I tried with Georgie a few times, when we were drunk… It didn’t go well. We never did that again. This, though? It was different, I don’t know why.”

“Well, I’ll just tell you right now, I really fucking liked it. Some Professor X bullshit, but wow.” Gerry was boneless against Jon, moulded to him like he was a missing piece of some unfathomable jigsaw that they hadn’t even realised they were looking for until now.

“Professor X bullshit?” Jon shook his head and chuckled. “Why do I feel like you’re going to be introducing me to a hell of a lot of pop culture references?”

“Yeah, and you’ll complain the whole time I bet.”

“Hm, maybe.” Jon laughed this time, a blanket of happiness settling over him. “For the first time in a long time, I feel like we have… I don’t know. Time, I suppose.”

“Until the next ritual, yeah.” Gerry smirked, resting his chin on Jon’s chest as he looked up at him. 

“Oh thanks for that, what a way to ruin the mood. Usually that’s my job.” Jon shook his head, amused, and then looked down at himself, aghast. “Good Lord, I don’t think I’ve ever been this sticky. Gross.”

“That’s what showers are for, you know. And tongues.” Gerry licked his lips suggestively and Jon swatted him again on the shoulder. 

“Disgusting man, begone with you. Into the bathroom and run us a bath.”

“Yes sir,” Gerry said with a lazy salute, and he rolled off the bed in a mass of long, loose-limbed elegance. Jon watched him go, a whole new appreciation of him from the back. 

“And use the nice salts!” he called after him. “They’re in the cupboard!”

Gerry saluted again and threw a grin over his shoulder, and Jon felt himself fall a little harder for him. Oh, this was going to be dangerous. And probably the most fun he’d ever had in his life. 


End file.
